I hope he buys you Flowers
by xFauxdilocksx
Summary: Brooke reflects on how she ruined her relationship with Peyton, the only person she ever loved, as she sits alone at Peyton's wedding's reception. A.U. Oneshot. Angst, no fluffiness in this one. Breyton. Read and Review.


**Angst fic, no fluffiness here guys, but it's just how I'm feeling tonight.**

**Flashbacks in **_italics…_

**Song lyrics in **_**bold italics…**_

**A.U. just roll with it. Brooke reflects on how she ruined her relationship with Peyton, the only person she ever loved, as she sits at Peyton's wedding's reception…  
Flashbacks are in no particular order, they're simply random reflection's on Brooke's part.**

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**I hope he buys you Flowers…**

'_**Same bed but it feels just a little bit bigger now.**_

_**Our song on the radio but it don't sound the same'.**_

"Ladies and Gentleman, may I present for the first time: Mr and Mrs Lucas Scott."

Have you ever heard the term 'muffled silence'? A bizarre, muffled, silence…? That's all I can hear as she walks onto the dance-floor, her small hand in his, her white dress flowing elegantly; _Bizarre, muffled, silence_. I hear the applause, I hear the cheers, I hear the song as he takes her into his arms for their first dance as man and wife.

But all I can see is her, and everything else is fading into the background.

But I hear the song; it was _our_ song…

"_I can't believe that you like The Cure…"_

_We didn't run in the same circle, I was a cheerleader, and she was an artist. We got paired for an English project in our junior year of high school, and that was pretty much it. _

_I remember the first time that she came to my house; I sat on my bed, pretending to be disinterested, while she rummaged through my music collection, her admittedly gorgeous legs on show from the red, chord, skirt that she wore, that was paired with a choice band-t…I'm sure that day she wore Dashboard Confessional._

_But she stopped throwing things around my room when she picked up a vinyl that I usually tried to keep hidden; The Cure didn't exactly scream cheerleader._

"_Umm, yeah… you know The Cure?" My voice was nervous, and I didn't know why._

_Maybe I felt like I was giving her a piece of my soul? In reflection, I think that I was._

"_Hell yeah! I love The Cure!" She grinned, clutching the vinyl close to her chest as she jumped up to sit next to me on my bed. "Especially this song!"_

"_Just like Heaven." I whispered; I knew that vinyl case like the back of my hand… I still do. "I had a nanny when I was a little kid; that was her favourite song. It just reminds me of her."_

"_Yeah?"_

_I nodded, and smiled at her weakly, and then she smiled back. This genuine, beautiful, smile, and that's the moment that I fell for her._

_When I think of Peyton Sawyer, that's what I see; her stunning smile and my Cure vinyl clutched to her chest._

"_Spinning on that dizzy edge, I kissed her face and kissed her head…" I whispered, looking into her green eyes, and I saw her smile soften, like she was suddenly seeing more in me, more than the 'Cheerleader', I'd been labelled as. _

"_And dreamed of all the different ways I had to make her glow…" She whispered back, and I blushed. _

_I was glowing._

_She made me glow._

_She was my Peyton…_

But now she's dancing to _our_ song with _him_, and all of a sudden it no longer sounds the same.

'_**When our friends talk about you, all it does is just tear me down.**_

'_**Cause my heart breaks a little when I hear your name'.**_

_That phone call, the one that killed me, the one that made me the shell that I am today, the one that made me a ghost of my former self… _

_It happened six months ago._

_After high school, after Peyton, I went to New York, and I never came back. I made a life for myself, a pretty good one, and I continued to live selfishly._

_I still knew in my heart that I loved her, but I buried it; I was Brooke Davis, and I was better than that._

_Until six months ago, when an old friend called, an old mutual friend of both mine and Peyton. She never knew about us, no one did, as far as she was aware we were only friends._

_Haley was Peyton's friend, who started dating my friend Nathan, and as far as Haley and Nathan were aware, that's how Peyton and I met._

_They were wrong._

_But now Peyton was marrying Nathan's older Brother, and I could only pretend to be happy for her._

_I remember seeing Haley's name flash across the screen of my iPhone. I hadn't seen her in four years, and barely spoken to her in two, but her words cut me to pieces. _

_Her tone was one of happiness, but her words shattered my world._

"_Peyton's getting married…"_

_Suddenly it wasn't buried anymore, and my whole world went grey, and almost silent…_

'_**It all just sounds like 'oh oh oh oh oh'**_

'_**Mmm, too young, too dumb, to realize…**_

_**That I should have bought you flowers, and held your hand'.**_

"_Hey…" She put her arms around me from behind as I stood at my locker, and I instinctively jumped, causing her to jump backwards._

_No one knew about us, and back then, I wanted it to stay that way._

_I was Brooke Davis, I was a cheerleader. I wasn't a lesbian._

_Only now do I realize how selfish I was, and how wrong my actions were._

_How my actions cost me everything…_

"_Hey, uh, I have to run, but…"_

"_Brooke…" I remember how she reached out to grab my hand, but I recoiled._

_I remember how she tried again, and I remember someone noticing…_

"_Not here!" My voice scathed, and I remember the look on her face like I'd only just saw it yesterday. "Just, not here okay. I'll see you tonight."_

_She nodded her head, and smiled weakly. But it wasn't the smile that I loved to see. It was a watery smile, like she was doing all that she could to hide her tears; tears that I eventually came to realize she cried a lot of because of me. _

_But that day, I didn't care. I had a reputation to uphold. _

_So I turned around. _

_And I walked away._

And now I wish that I had stayed firmly by her side.

'_**Should have gave you all my hours, when I had the chance.**_

_**Take you to every party, cause all you wanted to do was dance'.**_

"_Where are you going?" Her voice was worried, like she didn't want me to leave._

_I'd jumped off of her bed, and pulled on _her_ leather jacket, and with one final kiss I was heading for the door. _

_I didn't even acknowledge her tone, I was too selfish, but she knew that I was leaving; she'd come to expect it from me._

"_Yeah, well, Rachel is throwing this huge party, and I kind of have to go, it's going to be, like, the social event of the year…"_

"_But we're supposed to be hanging out tonight. It's Sunday."_

"_I know, but didn't you hear me, Peyton? Huge? Social event of the year?" I was so conceited that I didn't even see what I was doing to her right in front of my own eyes._

"_Well, I could come with you…?" Her voice was small, and nervous, and time made me realize that yes, I should have taken her, because she was the only person that I ever really had fun with._

_Not to mention, it was the very least that she deserved from me… _

_No one else in the world knew it, but Peyton Sawyer loved to dance, and I loved to dance with her; we'd dance alone in her room sometimes, and I loved to be that close to her._

_But instead of saying yes, I chose to protect myself and stamp on her heart even more._

"_Oh, it's just cool people, and I really don't think that it's your kind of thing. So, I'll just go, and you can just stay here."_

_And then I was gone._

_But unbeknownst to me, that night was the final straw for her, and as far as she was concerned, when I walked out of that door, I walked out of her life._

And now, as I sit alone at her wedding reception, watching her dance with Lucas Scott, the man who has everything that could have been mine, all I can comprehend is that I'll never have the chance to take her to parties, and to take her in my arms and dance with her like we used to on our stolen nights together.

Because I ruined it all, and now there's nothing I can do to make it right.

'_**Now my Baby's dancing, but she's dancing with another man'.**_

'_**My pride, my ego, my needs, and my selfish ways, **_

_**caused a good strong woman like you to walk out my life'.**_

"_Hey, I'm sorry but I have this party to go to at one of guys on the team…" I started, sitting down on her bed, bracing myself for the disappointed looked that I knew was about to emerge on her beautiful face._

_I was ditching her again, but over the course of our eighteen month relationship, she'd grown to expect nothing else from me._

_I always left her…_

_So I shouldn't have been surprised when her face didn't show disappointment, or hurt, or anger… there was nothing._

"_I went into this relationship knowing that you weren't ready, and back then I knew not to do it, but I did it anyway, thinking that eventually you'd realize that you love me more than you love your popularity. I thought that eventually we'd be a proper couple. But almost a year and a half later, nothing's changed, in fact, it's gotten worse, and I'm starting to realize that this is a very one-sided relationship…" Her voice was small, like it was taking everything she had just for her to say those words._

"_Peyton, we are a proper couple!" I know now that we were anything but, and that was my own, selfish, fault._

"_We're not. You'd rather party with your friends than spend an evening with me, and God forbid that anyone ever found out about us…" Her head was dipped in an attempt to hide the tears that trickled down her face, but I knew that they were there; I always knew. "I'm in this relationship because I want to be with you, but you're in this relationship because it's convenient for you… Do you know that my only wish is to take you out on a date?"_

_I lifted her head so I could look into her tearful, glassy, eyes. "Peyton, I'd love to go on a date with you, but…"_

"_But you're a princess and I'm a frog, I get it…"_

"_No! No way, don't you ever say that about yourself!" I remember how my heart broke when she said that, how my heart broke when I realized how she thought of herself alongside me._

_She wasn't a frog!_

_She was my princess._

_But I was too selfish to make her see that._

"_You're popular and I'm not, not to mention that I'm a girl. I can't do this anymore, Brooke, for a year and a half I've cried myself to sleep most nights because of you. You're ego is more important to you than I am; we're about to finish high-school, but I know that those people you will always be more important to you than I will. You always put your own needs before mine and you don't realize what it does to me, while all I ever try to do is make you happy… you're selfish Brooke, and it's taken me a long time to realize it, but I deserve better than that."_

_Her words were like a blow to the stomach, like a vacuum that sucked the air from my lungs…_

"_Peyton, no, you can't do this…" _

_I still remember unfolding the piece of paper when she handed it to me, and my world crumbling around me._

"_I applied for an internship at a record label in L.A, and I got it. I'm leaving after graduation."_

"_Peyton, you can't leave, don't you know how much I need you!" The prospect of losing her was the scariest thing that my eighteen year old self could ever comprehend. "Peyton, please don't. I love you."_

_Peyton was my safety net._

_She held me up, and she kept me grounded._

_She was my Peyton._

_But as I sat on her bed, listening to her words, a sad realization came to be:_

_She was my Peyton, but I had lost her._

"_You don't love me, Brooke, you only love yourself. It's over."_

Afterwards, I threw myself into parties, and into boys; into anything that wasn't Peyton.

We graduated, she left, and I became a shell of the Brooke Davis I used to be.

'_**Now I'll never, never get to clean up the mess I made,**_

_**And it haunts me every time I close my eyes'.**_

"_Do you, Peyton Elizabeth Sawyer, take Lucas Eugene Scott, to be your husband?"_

_The wedding ceremony passed in a blur; a blur of sadness, of unshed tears, of hope that she'd change her mind at the last second and I could have a chance to run away with her._

_In the six months leading to the wedding, I tortured myself with questions. Should I attend? Should I not? If she saw me there, would she realize that she still loved me too?_

_I decided to attend on the basis that it was easier than explaining the reason why I couldn't. I imagine that she agreed to let Haley invite me for the very same reason; it was easier to allow it than to explain why she didn't…_

_And I wanted to tell someone, to make it all easier, to finally get my feelings off of my chest, but I made her keep quiet all those years ago, and now it was my turn to extend the same courtesy. I couldn't ruin her wedding, the least she deserved was for me to respect her…_

_I felt like stopping the wedding, to tell her to pick me instead of him, especially when she looked directly at me like she was mentally replaying our relationship in her head, trying to decide if I was worth it._

_But I ruined my chance with her long ago, and now I had to face the consequences;_

_To watch her say 'I do' to someone who wasn't me._

_And when she did, it was like that phone call all over again._

_My whole world went grey, and almost silent…_

'_**It all just sounds like 'oh oh oh oh oh'**_

'_**Mmm, too young, too dumb, to realize…'**_

'_**That I should have bought you flowers,**_

_**And held your hand.'**_

"_What are those fucking things?" _

_It was my birthday, the first birthday that I'd spent with Peyton. She bought me a beautiful bunch of flowers; red roses, and white lilies, my favourite._

_She'd written the lyrics to our song on the card in her girly, artistic, handwriting, and signed it 'yours forever. P Sawyer', it was the most romantic gift that I'd ever gotten, and even after all these years, I still remember how much I loved it._

_But I even managed to ruin that…_

"_Oh, just some stupid gift from some creep at school. He's obviously into me…"_

_I'd been hanging out with Peyton in my bedroom, when I heard Rachel walk into my house._

_I made Peyton hide in my closet while I talked to Rachel, completely forgetting the fact that she could still see and hear everything through the tiny panels on the door._

"_Who are they from?" Rachel questioned as she reached over to lift the card. So in a panic, I pushed the flowers off of the shelf and into the full trash can._

"_I don't know, but they're disgusting anyway, so now they're where they belong… In the trash." I don't know why I said it, they were beautiful, and that was one of the very few occasions where I was aware that I'd probably just broken Peyton's heart._

And I did; that night she left after Rachel did…

'_**Should have gave you all my hours,**_

_**when I had the chance.**_

_**Take you to every party, cause all you wanted to do was dance**_…'

And as I sit here, reflecting on the love, and the loss, watching her dance with her new Husband, all I want to do is make it right. I want to go back to five years ago and take her hand in the school hallway. I want to buy her flowers, and I want to spend every second of my life by her side. I want to be the one with my arms around her wedding dress clad body, and the one whose hand is in hers. I want to be the one whom she dances with at the party…

But I now know that my dream will never be…

'_**Now my Baby's dancing, but she's dancing with another man.'**_

'_**Although it hurts, I'll be the first to say that,**_

_**I was wrong'.**_

I know that I ruined everything, I know that I've lost her forever, and I know that it's all my fault, but that doesn't make it any easier…

And as I watch him kiss her, I can't take it anymore.

I can't take the fact that I'll never get to kiss her sweet lips again, or touch her beautiful body. I'll never get to fall into a gentle sleep with her nestled tightly in my arms, or experience what it's like to see her walking down the aisle towards me, in a wedding dress…

Those are things that she gifted to Lucas Scott.

And before I know it, I'm running out there, and I eventually find myself resting against a wall outside of the venue.

My heart is beating fast, and my breathing is rapid.

I'm vaguely aware of the hot tears that are rolling down my cheeks.

Until I hear that beautiful voice and it snaps the entire world back into focus.

"Brooke... Are you okay?"

I look up and there she is; my beautiful Peyton.

She looks concerned, and worried about me, even after everything, and I realize then that all I ever really wanted was for her to be happy… even if it wasn't with me.

She deserved to be happy.

But I knew that too much time had passed for me to try to give her a simply apology, I owed her so much more than that.

'_**Oh, I know I'm probably much too late,**_

_**To try and apologize for my mistakes,**_

'_**But I just want you to know…'**_

So I take her beautiful, small, artistic, hands into mine and hold them against my chest. And with tears rolling down my cheeks, I whisper the only words that I can think of that would at least start to make things right…

"I hope he buys you flowers, I hope he holds your hand, gives you all his hours when he has the chance. Takes you to every party 'cause I remember how much you love to dance, do all the things I should have done, when I was your girl."

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**Reviews are the sweetest :D**

**A.N regarding Hold onto the Nights... I posted chapter 23, but after a review from a guest (Nicole) who mentioned that it has basically become a 'crackfic', I've decided that the story has run it's course. I removed chapter 23, and I'm going to just finish it with an Epilogue which explains everything that happened during the trial. HOTN was never intended to be 'crackfic', The Key is, but HOTN wasn't; I consider myself to be a good writer, and I take constructive criticism on board, but I really feel like HOTN has run it's course and is long overdue to be finished :)**


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